A new image transmitted by NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the lander's
solar panels.

"The Phoenix spacecraft succeeded in its
investigations and exceeded its planned lifetime," said Fuk Li, manager
of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "Although its work is finished, analysis of
information from Phoenix's science activities will continue for some
time to come."

Last week, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter flew
over the Phoenix landing site 61 times during a final attempt to
communicate with the lander.

No transmission from the lander was
detected. Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights in three
earlier listening campaigns this year.

Earth-based research
continues on discoveries Phoenix made during summer conditions at the
far-northern site where it landed May 25, 2008.

The
solar-powered lander completed its three-month mission and kept working
until sunlight waned two months later.

Phoenix was not
designed to survive the dark, cold, icy winter.

However, the
slim possibility Phoenix survived could not be eliminated without
listening for the lander after abundant sunshine returned.

An
image of Phoenix taken this month by the High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter suggests the lander no longer casts shadows the way it did
during its working lifetime.

"Before and after images are
dramatically different," said Michael Mellon of the University of
Colorado in Boulder, a science team member for both Phoenix and HiRISE.
"The lander looks smaller, and only a portion of the difference can be
explained by accumulation of dust on the lander, which makes its
surfaces less distinguishable from surrounding ground."

Apparent changes in the shadows cast by the lander are consistent with
predictions of how Phoenix could be damaged by harsh winter conditions.

It was anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup
could bend or break the lander's solar panels.

Mellon calculated
hundreds of pounds of ice probably coated the lander in mid-winter.

During its mission, Phoenix confirmed and examined patches of the
widespread deposits of underground water ice detected by Odyssey and
identified a mineral called calcium carbonate that suggested occasional
presence of thawed water.

The lander also found soil chemistry
with significant implications for life and observed falling snow.

The
mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an
oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for some microbes and
potentially toxic for others.

"We found that the soil above
the ice can act like a sponge, with perchlorate scavenging water from
the atmosphere and holding on to it," said Peter Smith, Phoenix
principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "You can
have a thin film layer of water capable of being a habitable
environment. A micro-world at the scale of grains of soil -- that's
where the action is."

The perchlorate results are shaping
subsequent astrobiology research, as scientists investigate the
implications of its antifreeze properties and potential use as an
energy source by microbes.

Discovery of the ice in the uppermost
soil by Odyssey pointed the way for Phoenix.

More recently, the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected numerous ice deposits in middle
latitudes at greater depth using radar and exposed on the surface by
fresh impact craters.

"Ice-rich environments are an even
bigger part of the planet than we thought," Smith said. "Somewhere in
that vast region there are going to be places that are more habitable
than others."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the
planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary science mission.

Its
data show Mars had diverse wet environments at many locations for
differing durations during the planet's history, and climate-change
cycles persist into the present era.

The mission has returned
more planetary data than all other Mars missions combined.

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001.

The mission also has
played important roles by supporting the twin Mars rovers Spirit and
Opportunity.

The Phoenix mission was led by Smith at the
University of Arizona, with project management at JPL and development
partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver.

The University of
Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace
and Technologies Corp., in Boulder.

Mars missions are managed by
JPL for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.

May 24, 2010

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Researchers based at the
University of Arizona are tracking earlier blooms and movement of plant
and animal species in response to shifts in climate.

The National
Phenology Network, based at the U of A, digs through decades of
records and recruits citizens as well as scientists to track these
changes.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says tree budding, the
hatching of animal species, earlier blooms, and other traits of spring
show up about 10 days sooner.

This can be a mismatch for
animals.

In the Arctic, caribou decrease in number when there
are many freeze-thaw cycles and the nutritional plants they eat aren't
available.

Some 39 butterfly species are proceeding northward in
their range and some are emerging from their cocoons so early that
food isn't available.

Numerous birds, too, are expanding their
range northward, but don't always encounter preferred food or the brush
cover needed to hide from predators.

Perhaps one animal species
most vulnerable to a shifting spring climate is the American pika, a
rabbit-like animal that lives in western alpine mountain regions on
talus, or broken rock, habitat.

When prevented from regulating
their temperature behaviorally and exposed to even slight
warming—temperatures of 77 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours—pikas will
die.".

"The American pika may be an early-warning indicator of
generally how alpine species may respond to contemporary climate
change," said Erik Beever, Ph.D., a wildlife ecologist who has studied
pikas for the past 16 years. Beever added that the reduced snowpack of a
warmer spring can also have an array of important biological and
economic effects: for example, those associated with skiing and with
providing water for lower-elevation communities. "This is yet another
piece of evidence that parts of ecosystems are responding to changes in
climate," he said.

Like other animal species, pikas have a range
of behaviors that give them some flexibility to accommodate higher
temperatures or different precipitation systems, at least in part.

In
southern latitudes, for example, pikas go deep into cool areas of
their rocky surroundings to ride out the midday heat during the hottest
seasons of the year, Beever explained.

Regrettably, this
behavior means pikas can't forage all day, which may compromise their
ability to survive as temperatures rise.

A warming climate is
expected to change forests and other ecosystems.

More trees are
now taking root northward or upslope.

Some tree species are
expanding in population while other species, such as white spruce fir
trees, are not adjusting to the new conditions.

As boreal forests
of the Arctic region expand poleward into the tundra, some species of
seals and their main predator—the polar bear—are losing part of their
habitat during summer.

"The take-home message is that it's
important to learn from the observed changes in distribution, yet keep
in mind species' behavioral flexibility in managing climate change,"
said Beever.

May 21, 2010

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Security
systems could be more effective if officials looked at how organisms
deal with threats in the natural world, University of Arizona
researchers suggest in the May 20 edition of the journal Nature.

The authors are working with security and disaster management
officials to help put some of their recommendations – such as
decentralizing forces and forming alliances – into practice.

"Anytime
you have the illusion of full security, you get adaptation," said Rafe
Sagarin, an assistant research scientist in the UA's Institute
of the Environment who is the lead author of the opinion
piece. "Terrorists figure out unexpected means of attack, hackers come
up with new software to break through firewalls, and pathogens develop
resistance to antibiotics."

Instead of relying on large,
centralized bureaucracies that move slowly and often lag behind in
addressing threats, the authors encourage officials to look to the
natural world for principles that could prove less costly, more
flexible and more effective at countering threats.

The security
issues of modern human societies are analogous to those of many
organisms, according to Sagarin and his co-authors. In nature, risks
are frequent, variable and uncertain. Over billions of years, organisms
have evolved an enormous variety of methods to survive, grow and
proliferate on a continually changing planet. The key to their success
is their ability to quickly adapt to rapidly changing threats, and
change their structures, behaviors and interactions accordingly.

Avoid
centralization

Unlike many security agencies or entities in
the human world, the most adaptable and successful organisms avoid
centralization. Instead, they distribute tasks among decentralized,
specialized groups of cells or individuals.

Sagarin points to
the octopus' camouflaging strategy to illustrate this principle: Its
networks of pigment cells, distributed all over its body, react to and
match the colors of the surroundings, blending the animal into the
background.

"We can learn something from the octopus about the
war in Iraq and Afghanistan," Sagarin said, specifically with regard to
the threat from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Just
like the octopus' decentralized network of pigment cells, he pointed
out, troops on the ground function like independent sensors that can
assess a threat more accurately, more timely and more realistically
than a large, centralized organization that is geographically removed
from the action and largely follows a top-down approach of command.

"The
individual soldiers in the war zone are the most adaptable unit out
there," he said. "They are in a better position to recognize and
address an emerging threat in time than a centralized bureaucracy."

Sagarin
and co-authors point out that terrorist networks such as Al Qaida have
recognized the advantages of this approach and operate a loose network
of largely independent subgroups.

"About 1,500 soldiers had died
from roadside bomb blasts between the time troops identified the
threat and the time MRAPs (mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles)
were deployed to deal with the situation."

Even after the
blast-resistant vehicles arrived, they proved only moderately effective
against a quickly moving threat that is constantly changing and
rapidly adapting to new challenges.

"These MRAPs are huge,
lumbering things that weigh 16 tons," Sagarin said, "The insurgents, on
the other hand, drive around in small pickup trucks. They quickly
figured out the MRAPs were limited to certain roads and started placing
roadside bombs specifically along those routes."

Let the
attacker know you're ready

Another lesson could be learned
by looking at how organisms deal with the constant threat from
predators, according to the authors. A key feature is the capacity to
reduce uncertainty and turn it into an advantage.

Hunting prey
uses a lot of energy, Sagarin explained, which is why predators seek to
ambush their prey. As soon as the prey is aware of their presence and
ready to engage in defense, a pursuit might no longer be worth it.

Ground
squirrels, for example, use alarm signals when a predator is lurking
nearby, not only to warn their peers, but also to make it known to the
attacker its cover is blown.

"When a prey species makes an alarm
call of any kind, the game is up," Sagarin said. Suddenly, things have
become a lot harder - if you're a hawk, you want to swoop down on a
squirrel and not get scratched in the face."

Remarkably, ground
squirrels use alarm signals that are very specific to the threat. If
the predator is a mammal (which can hear), they utter alarm calls. If
it is a snake (which cannot) they use tail-flagging to signal its
presence.

The less specific an alarm call is, the less efficient
it is in eliciting an appropriate response, the authors argue and point
to the U.S. Homeland Security's threat advisory for national and
international flights, which has remained at level orange (high) since
August 2006. This static, ambiguous and nonspecific system creates
uncertainty or indifference among the population that it is meant to
help protect.

Form allies

Another principle often
observed in nature is symbiosis, the formation of allies.

"Symbiosis
is not always between friends," Sagarin said, pointing to the example
of cleaner wrasses, small fish specializing in picking parasites off
other marine animals, sometimes entering their mouths. The clients
could easily swallow the cleaner wrasse while it is going about its
job.

"But they don't," Sagarin said. "It's a mutual beneficial
relationship in which the larger fish provides the cleaner fish with a
food source and protection, and the cleaner keeps it free from parasites
in return."

A lesson of how symbioses can successfully be
applied in the human realm was demonstrated in Iraq in 2007, the
authors note, when Gen. David Petraeus's strategy to form alliances
with local leaders - including those who had been hostile - resulted in
more tip-offs about IEDs and fewer American casualties.

Issue
challenges

Two years ago, Sagarin and colleagues published a
book titled "Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous
World." The research group has since begun to "make its observations
more actionable for the people on the ground," as Sagarin put it.
Working with emergency management coordinators, cybersecurity experts,
soldiers, police chiefs, air marshals, homeland security officials,
fire chiefs and public health officials, the group's ideas have
generated a lot of interest.

"One of the main lessons we learned
is that issuing challenges is more effective than giving orders when
there is a need to develop security measures," Sagarin said. He pointed
to the DARPA Grand Challenge as an example, in which the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense put on a
prize competition for the development of a driver-less vehicle capable
of navigating difficult terrain on its own.

"Anytime you pose a
challenge, not only do you get a diverse population of problem
solvers, but you get them to learn from each another."

However,
despite decentralization, it is important to still have an overarching
structure to provide guidance and encourage the development of new
ideas.

"An octopus is still an octopus," Sagarin said, "not just a
random collection of cells."

"The bottom line of all this is,
you can't just put up a wall around something and expect it to protect
it against every possible threat. Attackers will always figure out a
way."

The Opportunity
rover will surpass the duration record set by NASA's Viking 1 Lander
of six years and 116 days operating on the surface of Mars.

The
effects of favorable weather on the red planet could also help the
rovers generate more power.

Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit,
began working on Mars three weeks before Opportunity.

However,
Spirit has been out of communication since March 22.

If it
awakens from hibernation and resumes communication, that rover will
attain the Martian surface longevity record.

Spirit's
hibernation was anticipated, based on energy forecasts, as the amount
of sunshine hitting the robot's solar panels declined during autumn on
Mars' southern hemisphere.

Unfortunately, mobility problems
prevented rover operators from positioning Spirit with a favorable tilt
toward the north, as during the first three winters it experienced.

The rovers' fourth winter solstice, the day of the Martian year
with the least sunshine at their locations, was Wednesday, May 12 (May
13 Universal time).

"Opportunity, and likely Spirit,
surpassing the Viking Lander 1 longevity record is truly remarkable,
considering these rovers were designed for only a 90-day mission on
the surface of Mars," Callas said. "Passing the solstice means we're
over the hump for the cold, dark, winter season."

Unless dust
interferes, which is unlikely in the coming months, the solar panels
on both rovers should gradually generate more electricity. Operators
hope that Spirit will recharge its batteries enough to awaken from
hibernation, start communicating and resume science tasks.

Unlike recent operations, Opportunity will not have to rest to regain
energy between driving days.

The gradual increase in available
sunshine will eventually improve the rate of Opportunity's progress
across a vast plain toward its long-term destination, the Endeavour
Crater.

This month, some of Opportunity's drives have been
planned to end at an energy-favorable tilt on the northern face of
small Martian plain surface ripples.

The positioning sacrifices
some distance to regain energy sooner for the next drive.

Opportunity's
cameras can see a portion of the rim of Endeavour on the horizon,
approximately eight miles away, across the plain's ripples of
windblown sand.

"The ripples look like waves on the ocean, like
we're out in the middle of the ocean with land on the horizon, our
destination," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Squyres is the principal investigator for Opportunity and Spirit.
"Even though we know we might never get there, Endeavour is the goal
that drives our exploration."

The team chose Endeavour as a
destination in mid-2008, after Opportunity finished two years
examining the smaller Victoria Crater.

Since then, the goal
became even more alluring when orbital observations found clay
minerals exposed at Endeavour.

Clay minerals have been found
extensively on Mars from orbit, but have not been examined on the
surface.

"Those minerals form under wet conditions more neutral
than the wet, acidic environment that formed the sulfates we've found
with Opportunity," said Squyres. "The clay minerals at Endeavour speak
to a time when the chemistry was much friendlier to life than the
environments that formed the minerals Opportunity has seen so far. We
want to get there to learn their context. Was there flowing water? Were
there steam vents? Hot springs? We want to find out."

Launched
in 1975, Project Viking consisted of two orbiters, each carrying a
stationary lander. Viking Lander 1 was the first successful mission to
the surface of Mars, touching down on July 20, 1976.

It
operated until Nov. 13, 1982, more than two years longer than its twin
lander or either of the Viking orbiters.

The record for longest
working lifetime by a spacecraft at Mars belongs to a later orbiter:
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor operated for more than 9 years after
arriving in 1997.

NASA's Mars Odyssey, in orbit since in 2001,
has been working at Mars longer than any other current mission and is
on track to take the Mars longevity record late this year.

Science discoveries by the Mars Exploration Rover have included
Opportunity finding the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had
liquid water, and Spirit finding evidence for hot springs or steam vents
and a past environment of explosive volcanism.

M87,
the largest member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, harbors a monster
in its heart.

This massive elliptical galaxy rotates around a
central black hole with a mass equivalent to many billions of times that
of our own sun.

While it is impossible to see the black hole
directly, we can see the result of its voracious appetite.

As
surrounding matter spirals into the cosmic maelstrom and disappears
from the visible universe, a jet of high-energy particles is spewing
out of the galaxy.

"While we might be used to seeing images like
this one from a space telescope like Hubble, capturing far-away objects
with this amount of detail is extremely hard to do with a ground-based
and comparatively small instrument like our 24-inch RC Optical Systems
telescope," said Adam Block from the UA's Mount Lemmon
SkyCenter.

Capturing cosmic phenomena like this will be a
little bit easier once SkyCenter receives a 32-inch version of the
telescope provided by the Schulman Foundation later this summer.

SkyCenter
telescopes are available for the public to look through each night of
the year as part of the center's public outreach programs.

While
I was researching the East Pacific Hurricane Season outlook for this
summer, I stumbled across this article about hurricane history, chances
for formation and landfall, and this year's outlook on the Baja
Insider.

With El
Nino officially gone from the equatorial East Pacific, the water
temperatures are not as favorable for tropical storm development.

However,
the data from the last 50 years shows that an average year has more
named storms than both La Nina or El Nino years.

If a La Nina
forms, cooler than average sea surface temperatures dampen the formation
of tropical storms even more than in El Nino years.

Right now,
the equatorial East Pacific is in the neutral phase with near average
sea surface temperatures.

However, some of the global models
that forecast swings in El Nino and La Nina are predicting
a swing towards La Nina, which are cooler than average sea surface
temperatures.

If this happens, less tropical storms may form and
we may not see as many Gulf of California moisture surges to rev up our
afternoon monsoon storms.

On the flip side, the overall monsoon
circulation is more favorable for day to day storm development over the
Southwest.

I typed in Tucson and saw just how big the spill is
compared to southeast Arizona.

The spill was centered on Tucson
and extended west, past the Boboquivari Mountains where Kitt Peak is
located. It extended as far south as Tubac and as far north as Oracle.
To the east, the main part of the spill reached close to the Pima County
border with a finger of oil extending to Willcox in Cochise County.

Crude oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico as efforts to
shut down the leak and recover the oil already in the water continue.

May 11, 2010

The following is a news release from
University Communications at the University of Arizona.

TUCSON, AZ (UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA) - For the first time, video of an
earthquake is recorded live in Devils Hole, home to the only population
of a critically endangered pupfish species. Check it out by clicking here.

To most
people in the southwestern U.S., the April 4 El Mayor-Cucapah
earthquake felt like a rocking of the ground. But on a group of
inch-long fish that exist nowhere else on Earth outside of "Devils
Hole," a crack in the ground in Nevada's Mojave Desert, it unleashed a
veritable tsunami.

University of Arizona researchers were able to
catch the event on cameras installed above and below the water's
surface to monitor the fish's spawning behavior. It is the first time
in decades of research at Devils Hole that an earthquake was captured
on video.

The event provided the researchers with a rare
opportunity to study how a critically endangered species copes when its
confined habitat is shaken up in a dramatic way.

That
habitat is the "spawning shelf" – a submerged rock surface covered by a
mere two feet of water. It's here that the pupfish feed and go about
their breeding activity. The shelf forms the only shallow part of a
freshwater pool measuring 10 by 50 feet that marks the entrance to the
Devils Hole cave.

The pool provides a window into the extensive
carbonate aquifer within the Amargosa Valley groundwater basin. Despite
explorations undertaken by cave divers, no one has been able to probe
the depths of the Devils Hole cave system, although they are known to
plunge beyond 500 feet.

On most days, Devils Hole looks like a
glassy surface of crystal-clear water, shimmering with an unearthly,
iridescent turquoise hue at the bottom of a crack in the rocks 50 feet
below ground level.

But on April 4, 16 minutes after the
shockwaves arrived in the Mojave Desert 300 miles north of the
epicenter near Mexicali in Baja California, serenity gave way to
turmoil in the small world of the Devils Hole pupfish.

"The
water was sloshing back and forth so hard it splashed against our
cameras four feet above the waterline," said Ambre Chaudoin, a graduate
student in fisheries conservation and management with the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research
Unit at the UA.

"The quake swept the shelf clean from algae,
shuffling the silt and cobble around. Such disturbance can be important
because the spawning shelf is less than 13 feet long and 7 feet wide,
smaller than many walk-in closets. "

Chaudoin and fellow USGS
researcher Olin
Feuerbacher, a senior research
specialist for the Cooperative, conduct the pupfish monitoring study as
part of a joint effort to protect the Devils Hole pupfish population.
Under its land grant mission, the UA is tasked with research aimed to
learn how the fish might be propagated in captivity and what factors may
threaten their survival as a species.

The study is being
conducted by the USGS Arizona Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Research
Unit and is funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in
partnership with the National Park Service and the Nevada Department of
Wildlife.

Devils Hole pupfish numbered about 400-500 until the
late 1960s, when the water level in the pool dropped in response to
pumping of nearby irrigation wells. Only a U.S. Supreme Court order
prevented the shallow spawning shelf from falling dry, thus saving the
species from extinction.

Since then, the Devils Hole pupfish
have struggled to survive.

Chaudoin and Feuerbacher make the
trip from Tucson to Devils Hole twice a month to check on the measuring
equipment and download data. They happened to be on location
conducting pupfish behavior surveys the day of the April 4 earthquake.
Just 10 minutes before the quake struck, they had reconnected the video
cameras to their recording position inside the pool.

"The fish
begin to move out of the camera's view as the waves start getting
bigger, and then, because of all the sediment being stirred up, you
can't see the fish. As the waves grew stronger, the fish likely moved
into deeper waters," Chaudoin said.

"Although we knew from
water-level records that earthquakes influenced Devils Hole in the
past, this is the first time we've caught one on video," said Paul
Barrett, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who leads the Devils
Hole Pupfish Recovery Team. "It may provide great insight into how the
wave action cleans the fine silt off of the shelf."

Although the
violent sloshing during the quake washed away algae that are essential
to the food web of the critically endangered fish, algae have already
grown back substantially, according to biologists.

"We monitor
when the fish spawn and when they don't, and the environmental factors
present at the time," Chaudoin said. "We keep track of certain physical
parameters in the water, such as oxygen and temperature. We also study
the influence of day and night light cycles on the fish's behavior."

Disentangling the complex interactions between environmental factors
and the pupfish's behavior is not a simple task. It appears a
combination of several factors, such as oxygen concentration in the
water, temperature and length of daylight, all interact to trigger
spawning behavior.

"Our goal is to monitor all these factors on
an ongoing basis so we can obtain a continuous record," Feuerbacher
said. "In the past, research at Devils Hole has focused on personal
observations and measurements taken at certain times, which gives you
only snapshots of what is happening at those times."

Chaudoin
added: "The implications of the studies at Devils Hole reach far beyond
protecting these little fish. In a sense, they are canaries in a coal
mine. Because this habitat is so isolated and contained, we notice
changes right away. In a sense, it's a living lab where we can study
food webs and ecology, and the lessons we learn help us protect other
habitats as well."

One of the questions the researchers are
hoping to answer is whether natural disturbances, such as earthquakes,
are a threat or a boon to the pupfish population.

"Quakes can
serve a useful purpose in shaking silt and other fine particles that
have washed into Devils Hole off of the spawning shelf and into the
deeper waters," said Barrett. "This frees important space between the
substrate particles where the Devils Hole pupfish larvae seek refuge."

In fact, he added, after the April 4 Mexicali quake, the National
Park Service recorded a slight increase in larval abundance as compared
to a similar survey a few weeks before the earthquake occurred.

Federal
and state surveys done within a week after the earthquakes revealed
about 118 fish in the pool, compared to about 70 the year before. Also,
biologists saw newly hatched larval fish and evidence that the fish
were spawning.

Despite increasing numbers, the population is
still critically endangered, mostly because no fish exist outside of
Devils Hole. In 2006, the population plummeted to a critical low of
just 38 fish.

"Devils Hole was very important in the development
of endangered species legislation in the U.S.," said Scott Bonar. "Our
part is to try and understand Devils Hole pupfish behavior, especially
spawning and feeding, and the factors that influence those behaviors.
Only with this knowledge can we successfully create a backup population
and ensure the proper protection of this unique, endangered species."

Chaudoin observed that after previous disturbances, for example an
earthquake in Chile and violent winter rain storms, the fish exhibited
higher spawning activity than usual: "They were going crazy the next
day."

Chaudoin and Feuerbacher do not like to speculate but they
are intrigued of the idea that disturbance might play an important role
in triggering or influencing the fish's spawning behavior. Chaudoin is
investigating this question in a side project.

"There is a
possibility they might like disturbance," she said. "Perhaps the video
recordings will reveal something in the aftermath of the April 4
earthquake. I'm going to spend all my nightlife watching hours and
hours of video and extracting data from it."